Checkout Chick Society

hi, i'm bronwyn, and just discovered this place..sorta looks quiet around here. oh well.

i used to work at woolworths (ahh!), as a deli assistant, was there for almost two years (i dont know how i lasted that long..), till i had enough of it, and transfered to big w, where i'm currently a checkout chick..and also do fitting rooms/recovery/cosmetics occasionally :)




anyway, thought i'd share a horror story, that may make some of you'se smile, laugh, or cry.

Twas the night before christmas, about 10 minutes before closing time.
Our store had ran out of normal plastic bags, and all we had were these pathetic huge bags, with no handles. (Which the customers were all fine with! ..shock horror!)And we were running out of trollies also. (our trolley people arent the brightest, i've discovered..).
One lady comes in through self-serve, and went off at three of us (self serve attendant, door greeter, and supervisor), for not having any bags. Then went off at us for having no trolleys as well.
then after she finally paid, and left (about 5 minutes after we were suppose to close..ha), another door greeter (well, actulary a "..i'm sorry, we've already closed. Next christmas, try shopping earlier!" door person :D) told them to have a nice day.
and oh my god, she just went psyco at them.

Ahh..i love the nutcases at my work sometimes.. :D

So long time no update! Ive been thinking of allot of things to write here, but never seem to quite get aorund to it *kicks self in butt* I wanted to know how christmas time went for everyone?

Cause for me its always a bitch of a year with long lines due to $500 bills (why do people buy so much extra crap for the sake of christmas?) and impatent customers. I dont think we had too much theiveing this year. Its been known for children to coem in and shove $70 worth hams in their back pack and knick off. And by law we arent allowed to do anything aoubt it, unless we can stop them before they've left the store.

Im not sure if it happened in 06 or 05, but there were allot of people who realised they had totally blew their budget and abandoed mid transaction. Saying theyve forgotten tehir wallet, or when the payment is declined because of lack of sufficent funds and htey tell me theyll head over to the atm and be right back, we never see them again. Sometimes they dont even make excuses or fake promises, just look at the screen, pause, swear and then piss off.

I worked the night shift of Christmas Eve. It was just around 7pm when they started strip[ping the store of all christmas decorations. Santa hadnt even come and they had amde sure to erase every sign that Christmas even happened (excluding of course the discount bins filled with cheap crapola that the week before people had spent heaps on). Then the next day, we were warned that easter was approaching. I go excited, then realised it was still 4 months away. That didnt stop the eggs comming out in 2006, preparing for easter 2007.

Sir...I realise and appreciate you are in a rush but I have already apologised for my condition. It was three times that I told I was developing a migraine and my vision is slightly impaired. I know you dont care and do not want you to...however please do not yell and scream when I accidently scan something twice because my hand is now stuffed to hell(Went all weak and tingly). I deleted it straight away but no...you decided to yell when my headache was getting worse.

And please for the love of god...Do not yell at my manager who already hates for putting me on, and Do not yell at me for not being prepared for a migriane as some people cannot prepare for migraine and the last time I had one...I was Seven years old. (But I do remember it so it well)

Thank you so much for the lovely couple who ater this dickwad left my register talked to me very nicely and after the transaction gave me some of their painkillers that they just bought...next time I see you...I will seriously give you chocolate(Because I am sucker for big thank yous)


I still slightly have it still so if there are any typos I do apologise...

Okay so while i have plenty to bitch aobut i will start with some funny stories. Or at least i find them funny.

You know how customers who just want to leave the store with out buying things walk past your register? They wave their arms up in the air as if im accusing them of stealing. While their intentions are to say, 'hey my hands are empty', the way they spread out their arms to me screams "Look at me im an idiot!" Anyway one time this old man walked by, and he put out his hands and his left hand smashed into the eftpos machine as he walked by! It was so funny just watching him walk past and then his hand hitting the thing and the smack noise. He tried to be all discreet and keept walking, i bet it shocked or scared him. Hah hah!

One poor couple last night spilt a youghart. They cam and told us, probably becuase the yogourt had spilt all down her leg :D Poor thing was wearing these thong/sandles and her whole foot just looked like a blob of Blueberry and Vanilla Sky yoghourt. I cant spell yogourt can i? The whole mess took 3 staff to clean up. Why? WHo knows, youghort is messy.

1. The guy from Fresh Produce, he had hte mop and bucket to clean it up.

2. Little old me, who got off the register to fetch cloths (we use good ole Chux), a pan to pick up the yogurt and a bucket of clean water so the lady could clean her shoe, oh and her leg.

3. Supervisor - I think she was there to console the lady.

It was a nice adventure and i prefer running around getting stuff then to being on the register all the time. Most people hate doing the cleaning, but i prefer it. Except when their is like a feral milkshake or drink in the bottom of the bin bags yuck.

Soooo tired, lucky 6 hours passes relatively quickly
when you're bored...or whatever. I hate how customers always think they are right - take today (yesterday)
for example, first customer I serve tells me that there is blood on the floor I tell her that
I will clean it up when I had finished serving..because obviously I cannot leave my checkout mid-transaction, now can I? So she asked someone else...biatch, and then when it was her turn,
she bitched to me about how everytime she comes in there is always blood on the floor
and nobody seems to notice or care.

Lady, there is not a lot we can do about it when we are on checkout other than wait for
a free moment and clean it up. Customers still think they can tell me how to pack bags...even though I obviously
know what I am doing having been training and all...not to mention working in that hovel for a year. Jason (you looks gay and like Patrick Wilson out of POTO) , one of the managers, made a comment about how I was 6 or 7 minutes late....geez, get over it, it wasn't even busy.

The other day, Sue spoke to me about how between me and Matthew, one of the registers we had used was $50 short
and gave me a lecture about to give change and to check I am giving the right change.
I've never had a problem with this at any other store? I was serving on the express checkouts
the other day and a gentleman bought some items then said he wanted some cigarettes,
I politely informed him that you can only get them from the service desk.
He replied "I know, I'm in here every day" (I also have to tell you that you can only get them from the service desk because you were asking for them at a checkout) so I save/recalled the transaction and got his cigarettes...he then said to "I'd also like some cash out..$50...can woolies afford that?" ...of course we can.

I find it amusing when customers tell you how not to pack the pack when you've not even gone
to pack their bags - as if it weren't obvious that you back fridge things together and put meat in
plastic and bread on top or separate. Big cereal containers, chip packets, juice etc don't need a bag.

Also, it is not your fault when supervisors don't answer you calls. It's annoying when customers jump the
gun on the eft machine or get you to do it or change their minds at the last minute.
I think the only reason there are like three things a supervisor can do that cashiers can't
is because they have to have something to do still.

A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected:
2 litres of low fat milk, a carton of eggs, 2 litres of orange juice, a
head of lettuce, half a dozen tomatoes, a 500g jar of coffee and a 250g pack
of bacon.
As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a
drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the
cashier.
While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated
"You must be single."
The woman was a bit startled by this proclamation, but she was
intrigued by the derelict's intuition, since she was indeed single.
She looked at her six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly
unusual about her selections that could have tipped off the Drunk to her
marital status.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she said, "Well, you know what,
you're absolutely correct. But how on earth did you know that?"
The drunk replied, "Cos you're ugly."

Hey! I've been lurking for a while, thought it was time to finally say hi...

I'm Amanda, I'm 19 and work at a Woolies in Perth. I've worked there since the beginning of 2004 when I started my degree and will probably be there until the end of next year when I (hopefully) finish it.

A few weeks ago the service manager went on an extended holiday, all over Europe, and the running of our dept was left to her 2ic and 3ic, who are 20 and 18 respectively. The Thursday night/Saturday supervisor stayed on in that respect, and me and my friend, who shared smoke shop between us, were expected to take up some of the slack as well. Now, for a few weeks everything was going just fine and dandy. And then, the two main supervisors must have realised how much power they had and boy, has it gone to their heads. They've been really nasty to the people they don't like, ie, me, and have been favouring their friends a ridiculous amount. First they took me off smoke shop, with absolutely no warning, and replaced me with a girl who has been caught selling to minors, and then they took my friend off and replaced her with, well, whoever was handy. Which is a really stupid idea because we have supervisor authority, which is needed for a lot of what we do in the smoke shop - returns, etc - and our replacements don't have that authority, so they just had to come to us for help whenever anything came up, anyway. Tonight they went one step further, and told this other girl their supervisor numbers (which we are totally NOT allowed to do) and let her answer supervisor calls on their behalf. Hello? Even if they do want to slack off and do absolutely no work themselves, what am I? Chopped liver? At least if they got me to answer their calls they wouldn't be breaking the rules they're meant to be enforcing.

For now I'm just waiting until the manager comes back, but it's hard. I've almost forgotten what it's like not to work in an environment where everything is a popularity contest!

Gaaah. Anyway, that's my rant for the day. Three cheers to kymmington for making the coolest community ever! :)

Hey! I just finished my yr12 HSC Visual Arts course. My theme as hte supermarket, and consisted of portraits based on my regualr customers. If youre interested ive got some crappy shots here on ym deviantart account:

http://pepperkat.deviantart.com/ga…

They ones im tlaking about are labelled HSC infront. Hope you enjoy some creativeness.

Also, i was searching hte net and theres a comic book called Supermarket. I got to read an exceprt from it and it seems pretty cool. Just google it and check it out. Its by Biran wood or something.

Hey guys!

Okay so ive been playing with the layout. Did anyone see it when it was all red and white? Well now ive discovered S2 designs whihc i never used before. So um i dunno if im happy iwht this layout. If anyone wants to ahve a go at customizing one just ask and ill give you the persmission to do it :P

Hmm how do things work when its tiem for youre shift to end? At my work we are meant to put our signs up 5 minutes before clock off time. Which is shit, because we are meant to have finished serving everyone lined up, do a clearance and have a spot balance. All in 5 minutes. You never get out on time. And get in trouble for putting it up early. One of the girls ahd a argument with one of hte supervisors about it, man i wouldnt dare anger the supervisor chick that she did. I bet she wont get anymore shifts now. Yeah, my work sucks that wya. And we also have to clock on 5 minutes before we actually are meant to, which means we sometimes work an extra 10 minutes, and dont get paied extra for it.

I have allot of friends my age, 17-18 who are now supervisors and such. Franklins freak is still young, but he is the product mangaer or something. Im shocked at how other sotres let young kids mangae their stuff. My friend works at woolies and at the monet there are only 3 supevisors. So she practically lives there. Its killing her life. Does anyone here want to stay in this buisness for life?

Disclaimer: The following account contains coarse language, you have been warned, read at your own risk. Sincerely, Ms Nightfall.

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